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Encik Wong Sing Nang: Tuan Speaker, I rise to take part in the Wild Life Protection Bill, 1998 a bill to provide better provision for the protection of wild life, establishment and management of wild life sanctuary and all matters ancillary thereto.

Tuan Speaker, the Bill seeks to repeal the Wild life Protection Ordinance 1990. It is a comprehensive legislation for the protection and conservation of wild life and plants and for the constitution and management of wild life sanctuaries in the state, and to stringently regulate commercial sales of meat of wild animals.

Wild life is defined to include all species of wild animals and wild plants. An Animal means any species of animal and includes mammals, birds, reptiles amphibians, fish and invertebrates. Wild plants include all species of plants which exist and grow in the wild state in Sarawak or elsewhere in the world. Part II of the Bill deals with the appointment, duties and functions of a controller of wild life and his deputy, etc necessary for the proper carrying out of the provisions of this Bill.

Part III provides new procedure for the constitution of the wild life sanctuary. Wild Life sanctuary may be constituted in any state land which is not part of a national park or a natural reserve land. It may also be created within a forest reserve area.

Tuan Speaker, the introduction of this Bill is timely. It reflects the Government?s seriousness in protecting the wild life. The world is much like a special warehouse of miscellaneous goods, some labelled and others not the use of which and their values are not uniformly clear. Too often we destroy part of the warehouse without first asking what is inside the unmarked boxes. As a result of which items of value for human survival are lost. Yet we blunder forward hoping that what is lost can still be recovered which of course is but a fallacy.

Considering plant species alone, there are about 240,000 of them but only about 3,000 species have ever been used for food. Only 150 have been cultivated on any scale and a mere 20 which account for more than 85% are for present human consumption. Long gain rice, wheat and maize account for over half of them.

Tuan Speaker, thus, in our blunder, plant species which may have great potential as food in a hungry world, as cash crop for poor farmers, and as medicine and miracle drug for the sick are disappearing. They become the victims of indifferent human greed or of the survival needs of today.

Dr. N.S. Swanadan, President of International Union For Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources has commented, I quote;

?Abusing of our limited stock of natural resources is self-destructive and irrational but instead of nurturing these resources to provide benefit that can be sustained far into the future, too much of modern development is doing the opposite. Abusing nature to provide excessive benefit for a generation or two of humans. The symptom of this abuse are all around us from local deforestation to global climate change.?

Mr. Speaker, Sir, increasing agriculture production to meet the food requirement for the growing human population is a priority of many poor countries. This is achieved basically by funding crop land at the direct expense of wild life habitat. As habitat disappear, many species of animals are reduced, so much so that their total extinction becomes significant.

Conservation of wild life is internationally supported for scientific and educational reasons. However, there is no common agreement on the most effective means of achieving long term conservation. This is because each nation has its own specific problems and political ideology as to conversation and therefore as a consequence tends to be specific to each country. Developing techniques for assessing that trade, analysing the vulnerability of population to this trade and designing appropriate management techniques is currently a top priority in conversation biology.

In many developing countries, wild life conservation is not of interest to rural people. An exceeding research has survived because most of them are located in marginal land where human population are low and resource development has been hampered by harsh condition and low technology. Mr. Speaker, Sir, conservation is linked in the public mind with wild life but human has occupied this planet earth very thoroughly for thousands of years. A few real natural habitats remained instead the planet earth consist of a number of more or less entropogonic habitats originally occupied by people who has developed cultural approach to manage the resources of their local eco-systems in a sustainable function.

Mr. Speaker, Sir, World Conservation Strategy formulated by World Conservation Union (IUCN) with United Nation Environment Programme (UNEP) in World Wild Life Fund (WWF) stressed that development action that alter the environment so that it caters more effectively for human needs. It is essential if the world is to be free from poverty that such development be based on resources that regenerate naturally to meet our needs indefinitely. Destruction of tomorrow?s foundation in order to satisfy today?s needs is self-evidenced everywhere.

The World Conservation Strategy emphasised that conservation and development are not each other?s opponent though they are distinct in nature. We think sustainable development will seek to find room for wild nature which is both spiritual enrichment in a very practical sense the foundation of our lives. Nature nurtures us. Sustainable development simply mean meeting the needs of the present generation without compromising the needs of future generation.

Tuan Speaker, Sir, certainly for many years environmental question include minimally in decision of economic development in less developed countries but biodiversity and production of environment and wild life are one recognised as concern, a goal of more than traditional advocacy group that had become a factor in the word of multi-lateral agency. A developing country and of citizens everywhere, the relation of plants, animals and men in the global and local environment are now recognised and considered as never before.

Mr. Speaker, Sir, the importance of wild animal species to human nutrition has not been sufficiently recognised, yet it is estimated that 50% to 70% on the animal coating human consumed in Africa comes from animals. Wild plants and animals are also important for modern medicine and have the potential for even greater future application. According to the World Bank Report in 1992 more than 40% of all prescriptions written in United States contained one or more drugs obtained from wild plants and animal species. Annual sales of such drugs exceeded US$8 billion. They are increasingly important to industries as a source for the production of oil, gas and other commercially useful compounds.

Tuan Speaker, part of the Bill provides new procedures for the constitution of wild life sanctuaries which may be constituted over any state land which is not part of a national park or a nature reserve. It may be created over an area within a forest reserve.

In order to give effect to the protection of wild life sanctuaries, rural population and our local community adjacent to the sanctuaries must be integrated in decision making on conservation including establishment of corridors and buffer zones around them. Because of their greater power, conservation authorities are in a better position to establish trust by initiating local involvement in and by urging them to be bound by this undertaking. Once effective communication is established, area of common interest can be explored
and possible joint action will further promote trust building process and enable more difficult issue to be addressed amicably.

Outside the sanctuary corridors and buffer zones, local communities must be helped to set up programmes for sustainable utilisation of wild life within the administrative boundary of their villages. Allowance should be made for exploration of some resources from the sanctuaries while this does not complete with the conservation interests such as that few wood for building purpose and hunting properly for a fee.

Tuan Speaker, wild life resources are a common property belonging to no single individual or groups of individuals. If we are safe that in such marginal areas wild life is the most sustainable form of land use and that development and prosperity of the local people depend on the resources than conservation authority and then the government in general should take account of the welfare of the local community in planning for wild life conservation and management. Tuan Speaker, such successful example in Africa where the wild life policy and practice in Zimbabwe communal land. The growth of the wild life industry in Zimbabwe as its imputes in 1975 Parks and Wild life Act. It confers proprietorship of wild life resources on the owner or occupiers of alienated land. This owner and occupier are designated appropriate authorities for wild life on their land with right to decide on whether to use wild life, the mode of the use and to benefit fully from the revenues of the use. The positive impact of 1975 Act be readily apparent in the last 15 years. Zimbabwe has developed a game ranging industry second to none in Africa in which contributes significantly to the national economy. The conferment of wild life proprietorship of local owners and also demonstrated that wild life can be a highly competitive and environmental sound form of land use evidenced by large number of rangers who have turned from exclusive life stock to wild life or exclusive wild life mode of utilising their land. Zimbabwe Government remain the controlling authority for wild life in communal land. Policy that being revenues are pulled by government from safari hunting and communal lands are to be returned to district councils for community projects in producer area.

Tuan Speaker, for the past seven years, a handful of Zimbabwe communities have participated in the management of the local wild life through communal areas management programme for indigenous resources programme, nick-named Campfire programme which give local government governing body stewardship over natural resources as an incentive to maintain them. These programmes allow communities to benefit from the wild life in a variety of ways including earning profits from hunting, eco-tourism, and photo safaris as well as keeping meat and ivory from elephants killed. Under Campfire each local village comprising of about two hundred households is represented by a smaller group which in turn will elect small enough to meet under a tree elect committee members to represent them at wharf meetings. A wharf consists of four to seven villages. Today, 27 of Zimbabwe?s 56 communal areas have adopted Campfire and 13 of them received income from wild life. These districts cover an area of approximately 7.1 million hectares or 18% of the country?s land.

Currently most Campfire revenue is derived from the sales of sport hunting licence. Although the primary goal of the Campfire is to benefit local communities, wild life is benefiting as a pipe product.

The introduction of Campfire starts with the pilot scheme of conferring appropriate authorities on two district councils namely Gurube and Nayami Yami Wild Life. Revenue accruing from these two districts increase by four-fourth. When people receive revenue from wild life they will also start managing their own lands and their soil. Creating a sound ecological condition is not a new concept for rural African people, only that it is a concept which circumstances have not allowed them to create. Campfire, is not just a wild life programme. It is not even just an economic development programme based on wild life. Ultimately, it becomes an institution for the sustainable production of wild life. The local community participates in this conservation programme. Effective management of natural resources is best achieved by giving it forecast value for those who live with them. The unit of proprietorship for each should be as small as practical within the ecological and social political constraint.

I hereby propose six major steps that need to be taken into consideration in implementing conservation policy and the creation of wild life sanctuaries. First, give appropriate recognition to the traditional rights, knowledge and skill of the local indigenous people. The wisdom of the indigenous people is an asset from which all communities should benefit. One way of using this asset is to ensure that the right knowledge and production system of traditional people are properly valued. Second, take special measures to protect the rights of indigenous people. For the purpose of conservation and sustainable development, a basic report need to be prepared on the status of the indigenous peoples and their systems of management. They must be given the responsibility for managing the biological resources and conservation activities upon which their livelihood depends.

Thirdly, provide information on traditional management system. An inventory should be compiled on traditional systems highlighting those aspects which can contribute to conservation and development with special attention given to the identification and traditional systems which are being practiced at large. Fourthly, design and implement research programmes aim at promoting the application of traditional knowledge to modern resource management and, exchange of knowledge in methods to foster greater mutual understanding between indigenous people and conservation scientist and manager.

Finally, design projects which will benefit the indigenous people. Traditional land tenure arrangement should be used as a basis for planning and executing conservation projects and for those more directly concern with food and material production. It is also necessary to consider constructing a buffer zone of about one kilometer in diameter surrounding the sanctuaries and the immediate nacinity of areas where traditional activities are carried on and for the indigenous native community to be allowed in there.

As an option in the payment of compensation to the affected community alternative forest land may be given in lieu of cash. Wild life conservation could give rise to controversy if local people are excluded. Some negative impact like poaching, smuggling and revenge taking by the affected community have taken place in many countries where local people are excluded from the Scheme. Protecting nature requires government and international development agencies to actively see the participation of the people living near the protected areas. However, many protected areas are rapidly becoming wastelands as the lands around them are converted to alternative use.

Tuan Speaker, in a report published by World Bank 1992 entitled ?People?s parks linking protected area management with local community?, it says, and I quote: ?During the past decades, government and international agency have begun supporting a new approach towards management of protected areas, to integrate the needs of the local people by conserving this approach forecast on the so-called Integrate Conservation Development Practice, ICDP.?

In the face of human pressure, enforcement alone will not preserve those areas. Conservation thus require a prospective... policy... well beyond the park boundary and involve national policy as well as programme affecting local communities. Effort to promote social economic development among communities adjacent to the protected boundaries is the main concern of the ICDP. The ICPD commonly provides people living near protected areas with incentive to participate in conservation programmes and improve the living standard in the nearby communities.

Communities adjacent to the protected areas according to the Report, too often the residents who tend to be poor have to bear substantial loses due to their inaccessibility to their lands thus restricting their capability to earn a living.

With the participation of local community, the ICDP can play an innovative role in the conservation of wild life. Tuan Speaker, before I conclude, there are a few points that I would like the Honourable Minister to reply. You see in the proposed Bill there are sections which concerned commercial sales of the animal meat and the offence committed by those people who buy the meat. In other words what about the people who eat the meat? Is there any offence? Under the proposed Bill one is not entitled to more than five kilograms of meat, therefore if this Bill is going to be passed, the enforcement department will have to check each and every restaurant in Sarawak. There is therefore a loophole in the Bill. In order to avoid uncertainty why not simply stipulate that no person may have a certain quantity in his possession.

Secondly as we know a lot of restaurants offer this wild life meat and even advertise it on and the ministry concerned will often take action and ask them to remove those advertisements inviting customers to go there. And thirdly, I used to travel between Sibu/Bintulu, along Sibu/Bintulu road during night time especially between 11:00 to 2:00 o?clock. There were a lot of poachers, who they drove along the said road hunting the wild boars by the roadside. Anybody driving along the Sibu/Bintulu road would be able to see that such activity is still going on. So, Tuan Speaker, the Bill is a good piece of legislation and nobody would doubt that but, the enforcement thereof, when it come into force after it has been passed is the most important thing. The State Government must enforce it strictly and, I don?t mind if I were to be appointed as one of the enforcement officers as in the Rejang Basin there are a lot of protected and totally protected animals and birds on sale. With this note I will conclude my debate except to add that I wish to be counted as the first one to support this Bill and be prepared to give information to the relevant authority should I learn of any infringement of this Bill. We must make a stand now and say, enough is enough. We must protect our wild life. Tuan Speaker, thank you.